Blockbuster problem

[robitaille03]

I purchased a General Electric 3-5259A "Blockbuster" on eBay, it arrived today and (as advertised) it powers up and radio seems to work (can see by the level meters that it tunes into a station) but there's no sound. I can fix a lot of mechanical issues but following signals down the chain, troubleshooting PCBs and replacing capacitors would be new to me too. I looked over the board and I just don't see anything that looks amiss. Anyone's thoughts would be appreciated!

 

[robitaille03]

I cleaned mine up as much as possible, took all of the guts out of the case and went through the whole thing removing the dust, grime and crap from every possible piece, then put it (mostly) back together. Still no sound, so just on a whim, I plugged in some headphones and cranked the volume up to the maximum. I could hear the music very very faintly, as in just barely audible in a silent room. With nothing else to do, I unplugged the headphones (volume is still up to maximum) and as I did so, the speakers started to crackle with static so I immediately turned the volume down, wondering what the heck is going on. Then over the next 5-10 seconds, the static turned into a perfectly clear output of the music. I have no idea what happened, but I suspect I cleaned something (the record bar?) and that alone solved the problem. But it was really weird how the unit came to life somewhat slowly, as if out of a deep sleep.

 

[caution]

What a relief that is, hah. Yeah, switches are notorious for going bad over time. If you have any contact spray you might want to give them a spritz and exercise them to keep the problem from coming back

 

[Superduper]

More likely, the issue was a dirty headphone jack. That jack has a built in switch that cuts out the speakers when a headphone plug is inserted. It was probably oxidized or corroded. By inserting a plug, you probably scrubbed off just enough to restore contact. A more thorough cleaning of that jack would be advisable.

 

[Fatdog]

More likely, the issue was a dirty headphone jack. That jack has a built in switch that cuts out the speakers when a headphone plug is inserted. It was probably oxidized or corroded. By inserting a plug, you probably scrubbed off just enough to restore contact. A more thorough cleaning of that jack would be advisable.

 

[blu_fuz]

I agree on the headphone jack. When you push the cord in, it disconnects the L/R speaker output. This happened on a Wheely I bought years ago, got it for a great price because it had "no sound" and it was just a broken headphone jack.

 

[robitaille03]

More likely, the issue was a dirty headphone jack. That jack has a built in switch that cuts out the speakers when a headphone plug is inserted. It was probably oxidized or corroded. By inserting a plug, you probably scrubbed off just enough to restore contact. A more thorough cleaning of that jack would be advisable.

Wow, thank you for your insight - that would've never occurred to me. That seems to be very likely. Again, thank you.